Manchester United: The Final score on Tuesday?

Manchester United fans have had an absolute roller coaster of a season the like of which they haven’t witnessed in decades. Of course there were dips under Fergie. When Jose Mourinho came along in 2004 Manchester united looked as if they might be consigned to The Premier League abyss.

But the supreme Scot built another team and by 2008 they were once more winning The Champions League. So there has been nothing quite like this for a long time.

The problem for Manchester United fans is that they retain a default setting for their club. After 25 years of serial success they expect every bad result to be followed by lots of good ones. But it just hasn’t been the case this season. If anything it’s been a campaign where every good result has been followed by a disastrous one.

But these periodical decent results keep garnering hope. Manchester United put the Liverpool and City defeats behind them to beat Aston Villa comfortably at the weekend. But recent history suggests that this will be a temporary reprieve for David Moyes. Because he simply hasn’t done the business against any of the major teams at home or abroad. We don’t think that he is the right man for the Manchester United job – yet at least.

He may survive for another season and be all the wiser for his bruising experiences. But we still need one heck of one lot of convincing.

So the omens might suggest another battering for Manchester United. Indeed, we at soccersweep have been embarrassed by some of our pre-match predictions this season, the latest being the 2-2 that we envisaged vs Manchester City.

But, we are staying positive for Manchester United. No amount of bad manager can suppress the spirit of the club permanently. While we wouldn’t put a penny on Manchester United going through at this stage we think that the fans and the players will rouse themselves for the home tie. We believe that the players will see this one as the season defining game. A chance to restore pride. Perform well and we can start to talk about a bright future for the club – but another home humbling and it’s surely curtains for Moyes and several of the players.

So, we think that Manchester Untied will avoid a spanking and keep the tie alive with a 1-1 draw. Most will then assume that Bayern will take it at home. But Moyes can point to the one decent record that he has at Manchester United – his team have taken more points away from home this season than any other English side.